C9U 



DISMOUNTING- -DLSSIDI.N : S. 



puiul. sex en miles in length. The 

 Pasquotauk t'u\\- from tl.i- lake soulh, and the Naii- 

 seiuond flows from it north. 



Dismal Swamp Canal, or Chesapeake and Albemarle 

 Canal, passes Uiroutrh this swamp. beginning at Deep 

 creek, a branch of 1 litilx-ih river. seven miles above 

 Norfolk, iiml terminating at Joyce's creek, a branch 

 of tlu> Pasqnutank, thirty miles from its entrance 

 into Albwnarle sound. It is -&\ miles long, thirty- 

 eight feet broad at the surface, and 5.} feet deep. 

 See Canals. 



DISMOUNTING, in the military art, is render- 

 ing the enemy's cannon mint for further service, by 

 breaking their carriages and axle-trees ; also, shat- 

 term:,' ilie parapet of a retrenchment, or of a wall, by 

 ballsj so that it cannot be defended, particularly so 

 that cannons cannot be worked beliind it. Dis- 

 mounting batteries are such as are intended to throw 

 down the parapets of fortifications, and disable the 

 enemy's cannons. They are placed generally in the 

 second, often in the third parallel. If they are on 

 the glacis, in the salient angles of the bastions, and 

 fire against the flanks of the adjacent bulwark, they 

 are called counter-batteries. They are erected ex- 

 actly opposite the front to be battered, and consist 

 of from four to eight cannons, mostly twelve pounders. 

 These cannons are generally aimed, at the same time, 

 at the same embrasure, whilst the others occupy the 

 other cannon of the enemy : when one of the enemy's 

 cannon is silenced, the fire is directed to another, and 

 so on. Some mortars and howitzers, which may be 

 placet! either within the dismounting battery or by 

 themselves, support its fire, by bombarding the 

 attacked embrasures : the fire of both must be slow, 

 and well aimed. The distance of the dismounting 

 battery from the work attacked, is usually from three 

 to 400 paces, according to the distance of the second 

 parallel. It, lias been proposed, in modern times, to 

 shoot grenades, instead of ban's, from the cannons, 

 into the works which are to be dismounted, to pro- 

 duce an effect, by their bursting, similar to tliat of 

 mines. 



DISPENSARY ; a charitable institution, common 

 in large towns. Dispensaries are supported by vo- 

 luntary subscriptions, and each has one or more 

 physicians, surgeons and apothecaries, who attend, 

 or ought to attend, at stated times, in order to pre- 

 scribe for the poor, and, if necessary, to visit them 

 at their own habitations. The poor are supplied 

 with medicines gratis. Where these institutions are 

 managed with care, they are of the utmost impor- 

 tance to society, it being unquestionably more for the 

 comfort of the sick, to be attended at their own 

 houses, than to be taken from their families to an 

 hospital. 



DISPENSATORY ; a book in which all the medi- 

 cines are registered, that are to be kept in, an apo- 

 thecary's shop, and the apothecaries directed how to 

 compose them. Almost every country in Europe, 

 and many large cities, have their own dispensatories, 

 which the apothecaries are bound to follow. 



DISSEIZIN, or DISSEISIN, is the dispossessing 

 one of a freehold estate, or interrupting his seizin. 

 Under the feudal law, when a vassal was admitted to 

 an estate, by the ceremony of investiture, he was 

 said to be seized of it. The disseizing of him was the 

 turning him out of his fee. The entry into a vacant 

 estate is not a disseizin. In regard to incorporeal 

 hereditaments, as of a certain office, or the right to 

 receive a certain rent out of land, without that of 

 possession, there could be only a constructive dis- 

 seizin. The person disseizing another is called the 

 disseizor, and the person whose estate is disseized, 

 the disseizee. By & freehold is meant an estate for 

 1'fe, or some larger estate ; and an estate foi' years, 



, thoimii it l)e for a hundred years, is not z 

 freehold. Of freeholds, only, can a seizin be had, of 

 a disseizin done. Whether an entry upon lands is or 

 is not a disseizin, will depend partly upon the circum- 

 stances of the entry, anil partly upon the intention of 

 the party, as made known by lus words or acts. Thus, 

 if one enters another's house without claiming any 

 tiling, it is not a disseizin. So, if one enters wrong- 

 fully upon another's land, and the owner afterwards 

 receives rent of him, it will not be a disseizin ^.so, if 

 a lessee at will makes a lease for years, it is a dis- 

 seizin ; so, if one enters upon the lands of an infant, 

 though with his consent, it is a disseisin, if the infant 

 chooses afterwards so to consider it ; so, if one com- 

 mands another to make a disseizin, the person Diving 

 i he command is a disseizor ; and so it is a disseizin to 

 prevent the owner from entering on Ids land, &c. 

 Between joint- tenants, and tenants in common, and 

 coparceners, the entry of one, being construed to be 

 made in behalf of all, is not a disseizin, which, in 

 these, cases, must be the actual ouster of the co-ten- 

 ant ; that is, putting or keeping him out of posses- 

 sion . thus, if one co-tenant, after entering, makes a 

 feoftiuent of the whole, tins is a disseizin ; for it shows 

 the intention of the entry : so if one, being in posses- 

 sion, claims the whole, and refuses to pay rent, &c. 



DISSENTERS. See Non-Conformists and Eccle 

 siastical Establishments. 



DISSIDENTS, in its more extensive meaning, de- 

 notes those who differ from the established religion of 

 a country. It lias been used in a more particular 

 sense in Poland, since 1736, to denote all those who, 

 though they do not belong to the established (Catho- 

 lic) religion, are yet allowed the free exercise of their 

 respective modes of worsliip, including Lutherans, 

 Calvinists, Greeks, and Arminians, and excluding 

 Anabaptists, Socinians, and Quakers. As early as 

 the time of Luther, the reformation was introduced 

 into Poland. During the reign of Sigismund A ugus- 

 tus (1548-72), great numbers of the people, and even 

 half of the members of the diet, and more than half 

 of the nobility, were Lutherans or Calvinists. The 

 convention of Sandomir, concluded in 1570, united 

 the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Bohemian brethren 

 into one church a union which had also a political 

 tendency, and whose members obtained the same 

 rights with the Catholics, by the religious peace (pajc 

 dissidentium) sworn to by the king in 1573. But the 

 great mistake committed in not settling the mutual 

 relations of the two religious parties, gave rise to 

 bloody contests. Although the rights of the dissidents 

 were afterwards repeatedly confirmed, they were gra- 

 dually repealed, particularly in 1717 and 1718, in the 

 reign of Augustus II., when they were deprived of 

 the right of voting in the diet. They lost still more, 

 some years afterwards (1733), under Augustus III.; 

 and in the diet of pacification, as it was called (1736), 

 an old statute, requiring every Polish king to be of 

 die Catholic church, was revived. After the acces- 

 sion of the last king, Stanislaus Poniatowski, the dis- 

 sidents brought their grievances before the diet held 

 in 1766, and were supported in their claims by Rus- 

 sia, Denmark, Prussia, and Britain. Russia, in 

 particular, profited by the occasion, to extend her in- 

 fluence in the affairs of Poland, supported them 

 strongly, and succeeded, by her mediation, in bring- 

 ing about a new convention, in 1767, by which they 

 were again placed on an equal footing with the Ca- 

 tholics. The diet of 1768 repealed the decrees which 

 had been 'formerly passed against them. The war 

 against the confederates breaking out, however, and 

 the kingdom being dismembered, nothing was accom- 

 plished, until the year 1775, when the dissidents ro- 

 gained all their privileges, excepting the right of 

 being elected senators or ministers of state. Latter 



