BEN 



255 



BEN 



cargo belonging to the adventurers, worth about 40001. 

 His reasons for visiting America, and not going to Mada- 

 gascar direct, appear to have been these : he could get no 

 European flag to cover his expedition ; and he thought he 

 might obtain a Hag and an extensive co-operation from the 

 enterprising citizens of the United States, whose independ- 

 ence as a nation had been fully recognised by England 

 in the month of September of the preceding year, 1783. 

 And, in effect, a respectable house of Baltimore was in- 

 duced to enter into Benyowsky's schemes, and supplied the 

 Count with a ship of 450 tons burden, armed with twenty 

 6-pounders and twelve swivels. The same merchants also 

 furnished stores and part of a cargo to trade with. Every 

 one on board took an oath of discipline and obedience to the 

 Count, but a supercargo, named by the merchants, went to 

 take care of their goods and interests. This ship, which 

 was called the Intrepid, sailed from Baltimore, for the har- 

 bour of St. Augustine, on the east coast of Madagascar, on 

 the 25th of October, 1784. On account of the pregnancy 

 of Madame Benyowsky, the count left his family behind 

 him in America. The voyage, from the beginning, was a 

 slow and unlucky one. In the early part of January, 1785, 

 the Intrepid made the coast <f Brazil, whence Benyowsky 

 wrote the last letter his friends ever received. About a 

 month afterwards the ship ran aground at the island of Juan 

 Gonsalvez, and it was nof before April that she was got off 

 and made sea-worthy. Benyowsky then stood across the 

 Southern Atlantic for the African continent. He doubled 

 the Cape of Good Hope, without putting into port there, 

 and after touching and resting for a short time at Sofala, 

 he at last (on the 7th ot July, 1785) cast anchor at Mada- 

 gascar, in the bay of Antahgara, ten leagues to the S.W. 

 of the bay of St. Augustine. II>i there disembarked with 

 his immediate associates, and began to unload part of the 

 cargo, consisting, probably, of the four-thousand-pounds'- 

 worth he had brought fruin KnsiLuid. It is then stated 

 that Lamboin, king of Northern Madagascar, whom he had 

 known on his former visit, came to pay his respects, and 

 that a body of the race or tribe called Seclaves, under their 

 chief or king, came also and encamped near to Benyowsky ; 

 that the Count proposed to enter into the solemn compact or 

 oath of blood with the Seclaves, and that their chief de- 

 clined on the pretext of being much fatigued by his journey. 

 From the protest of the master of the American ship, it 

 should further appear, that on the night of the 1st of Au- 

 gust, between the hours of ten and eleven, a heavy firing 

 was bean! and seen exactly at the spot where the Count had 

 encamped ; that between five and six on the following 

 morning a few scattered shots were heard in a small wood 

 about a mile up the country ; that at daylight no signs were 

 perceived of any white men on shore ; that all the effects 

 they had landed had been removed ; and that, lastly, seeing 

 their own dangerous position, with few hands, and a want 

 of arms and prov ision*, the people on board the ship weighed 

 anchor and >tood away with all speed for the island of Jo- 

 hanna. From Johanna they went to Oibo, where the super- 

 cargo sold both ship and cargo for the benefit of the uhder- 

 writers. Frmn this protest it should seem that Benyowsky 

 met his death at the hands of the savages, but as the con- 

 trary is known beyond a doubt, entire discredit is thrown on 

 the ship-master's evidence. Mr. Nicholson saw a letter 

 frini one of the persons on board the ship, which states that 

 the writer and another individual were not at all convinced 

 that the firing they heard on shore proceeded from the 

 natives and that they signed the master's protest ' because 

 they were overborne by numbers.' And in another letter 

 from an officer who was carried prisoner to the Isle of France 

 after the ascertained final destruction of the Count's party, 

 Mr. Nicholson found, indeed, mention of a firing heard by 

 niu'tit, but, contrary to the master's protest, this officer 

 affirmed that the ship, to their great astonishment, sailed 

 away in sight of those on shore, wlio in vain pulled after her 

 in the boats or canoes of the country. The writer of the 

 same letter stated, that fifteen days after the vessel had 

 abandoned him, the Count departed for Angoutci, leaving 

 most of his people behind, to follow him ; that all his men 

 fell tick soon after and died, with the exception of two, who 

 remained with him to the last. 



But though thus abandoned, the resources of this extra- 

 ordinary man did not fail him. He put himself at the head 

 of an armed force of the natives, and seized the magazines 

 and warehouses of the French, who, to the annoyance of 

 the Madagascar savages, had formed more tliau ono esta- 



blishment on the island. He then busied himself in erecting 

 a town, after the fashion of the natives, near to Angoutci, 

 whence he sent a detachment of a hundred blacks to take 

 possession of the French factory at Foul Point ; but this 

 expedition was frustrated by a French frigate that came to 

 anchor off the said point. In consequence of these move- 

 ments, the governor of the Isle of France sent a ship to 

 Madagascar with sixty French soldiers, who landed and 

 attacked the Count on the morning of the 23rd of May, 

 1786. Benyowsky awaited their approach in a small re- 

 doubt he had thrown up, with two small cannons, two 

 Europeans, and some thirty or forty natives. The blacks 

 fled at the first fire of the French, and the Count having 

 received a ball in his right breast, fell behind the parapet, 

 whence he was dragged by the hair, and expired a few 

 minutes after, in the forty-fifth year of his age. 



(Memoirs and Travels of M. A. Count de Benyowsky, 

 written by himself. Translated from the original MS. 

 2 vols. 4to. London, 1790.) 



BENZAMIDE. Benzoic acid is supposed to contain an 

 inflammable compound body, which has been termed ben- 

 zule, and is composed of 5 equivalents of hydrogen, 2 of 

 oxygen, and 14 of carbon: this compound is capable of 

 combining with sulphur, chlorine, and some other ele- 

 mentary bodies. The chloride of benzule absorbs ammo- 

 niacal gas, with the extrication of much heat. By com- 

 plicated affinities a white solid is formed, which, after sa- 

 turation with ammonia, consists of benzoate of ammonia 

 and Lfnzamide, so called because it be^irs to benzoate of 

 ammonia the same relation that oxamide bears to oxalate 

 of ammonia: by cold water the benzoate of ammonia is de- 

 posited, and the benzamide remains unacted upon. 



Dr. Turner represents benzamide theoretically as a 

 compound of benzule and dinituret of hydrogen, but he 

 remarks that other hypotheses may be formed respecting its 

 constitution. 



Senzamide has the following properties : it fuses into a 

 limpid liquid at 23'J, which concretes into a foliated mass 

 on cooling ; when strongly heated it boils, and volatilizes 

 unchanged. Cold water dissolves only a little, but boiling 

 water takes it up readily and without decomposition ; alcohol 

 and boiling aether both dissolve it ; it crystallizes in pearly 

 rhombic prisms; a cold solution of potash does not decom- 

 pose it, but when they are heated together, ammonia is 

 evolved and benzoate of potash is left ; it is also decomposed 

 by boiling sulphuric acid. 



In whatever way the elements of benzimide may bo 

 combined, it is represented as consisting ultimately of 7 

 equivalents of hydrogen, 2 of oxygen, 14 of carbon and 

 1 of azote. 



BENZINE. When one part of benzoic acid was mixed 

 with three parts of hydrate of lime and subjected to distilla- 

 tion, M. Mitscherlich obtained a fluid having the following 

 properties, and to which the nance of benzine is given. It 

 is limpid, colourless, of a peculiar odour, and its density is 

 U'S.T ; it boils at 187 Fahr. ; it congeals in ice into a crys- 

 lulline matter ; it is slightly soluble in water, but readily so 

 in alcohol and sether. The density of its vapour is 277. 

 Its composition is similar to that of the solid compound of 

 hydrogen and carbon discovered by Faraday. Its action upon 

 chlorine and nitric and sulphuric acid is very peculiar. 



BENZO'IC ACID. This acid, as its name imports, is 

 usually obtained from the resinous substance called gum 

 benzoin or benjamin; it occurs also in some other vegetable 

 bodies, as the balsam of Peru and of Toiu, storax, and in 

 the flowers of the Irifoliiim melilotus offlcinah's. It is found 

 also in the urine of the cow, horse, and other herbivorous 

 animals, and also in that of children. 



It may be prepared from benzoin either by sublimation or 

 by precipitation ; the former method is employed in the Lon- 

 don, and the latter in the Berlin Pharmacopoeia. The pro- 

 cess of sublimation is perfectly simple ; the benzoin being 

 subjected to a moderate heat in a proper vessel, the benzoic 

 acid rises in vapour and is condensed in the upper and cool 

 part of it. As thus obtained it is mixed with a considerable 

 quantity of empyreumatic oil, which gives it both colour and 

 smell ; the greater part of this oil is separated by absorption 

 and pressure, and the acid being then resublimed, retains 

 but little, and rather an agreeable odour; it is frequently 

 called flowers of benzoin or of benjamin. 



In the Berlin Pharmacopoeia four parts of benzoin, re- 

 duced to powder, are first digested and then boiled in water, 

 with nine parts of carbonate of soda ; the solution of ben- 



