842 



ELIOT ELIOTT. 



Hiriong the exceptions from the decree of amnesty of 

 1884. 



ELIOT, JOHN, styled the apostle to the Indian*, 

 was born in England, in 1604, and educated at the 

 university of Cambridge. After pursuing the occu- 

 pation of a teacher in England, he emigrated, in 

 1631, to Massachusetts. He became minister of the 

 church in Roxbury, and soon conceived a strong 

 passion for Christianizing and improving the condi- 

 tion of the Indians, or whom there were nearly 

 twenty tribes within the limits of the British planta- 

 tions. He acquired their language, and published a 

 ; n 1 111111:1 r and a translation of the Bible in it. The 

 merit is claimed for him of having been the first 

 Protestant clergyman who preached the gospel to 

 the North American savages. His evangelical 

 labours, and personal sufferings, his influence among 

 them, his zeal, courage, and exposure in protecting 

 them from wrong and violence, are celebrated in a 

 number of the publications on New England history 

 and biography. This indefatigable missionary died 

 May 20, 1690, aged about eighty-six years. He 

 left four sons, whom he had educated at Harvard 

 college, and who were classed with " the best 

 preachers of their generation." His extreme antipa- 

 thy to wigs and the use of tobacco is specially noticed 

 by all his biographers. He was eccentric, besides, 

 in his ascetic habits, and in several of his main theo- 

 logical opinions. His printed works are voluminous. 

 In 1660, he issued a tract, in which he attempted to 

 prove that the Indians are descendants of the Jews. 

 His political theories were fully democratic. Hut- 

 chinson relates, in his History of Massachusetts, 

 that, in 1G60, the governor and council of Massa- 

 chusetts pronounced the Christian Commonwealth, 

 of which Eliot was the author, to be " full of sedi- 

 tious principles and notions, in relation to all estab- 

 lished governments in the Christian world, especially 

 against the government established in their native 

 country." Upon consultation with the elders, their 

 formal censure was deferred, in order to afford the 

 heretical republican an opportunity of making a 

 public recantation. He did this in a paper, which 

 he delivered to the general court, at its next session,. 

 and which was posted up, by its order, in the prin- 

 cipal towns of the colony. He acknowledges that 

 "such expressions as do manifestly scandalize the 

 government of England, by king, lords, and com- 

 mons, are antichristian, and that all form of civil 

 government, deduced from Scripture, is of God, and 

 to be subjected to, for conscience' sake ; and whatso- 

 ever is in the whole epistle or book inconsistent here- 

 with he does, at once, most cordially disown." 



ELIOTT, or ELLIOT, GEORGE AUGUSTUS (lord 

 Heathfield) ; a distinguished British general, was 

 bora in Roxburghshire, in 1718, of an ancient family. 

 He was educated at home, by a private tutor, and 

 afterward sent to the university of Leyden. He 

 stuilied military science at the French military school 

 at La Fere, travelled through several parts of the 

 continent, and served in the Prussian army as a 

 volunteer. In 1733, he joined the engineer corps at 

 Woolwich, where he continued till he was made ad- 

 jutant of the second corps of horse grenadiers. He 

 accompanied George II. to Germany in May, 1743, 

 when that monarch assisted Maria Theresa against 

 France, and was wounded in the battle of Dettingen, 

 and rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In the 

 seven years' war, he fought under the command of the 

 duke of Cumberland, prince Ferdinand, and the crown 

 prince of Brunswick, from 1757, as commander- 

 iu-chipf of a regiment of light cavalry, which he had 

 himself raised. He was called from the continent to 

 be made, second in command at Havanna. In 1775, 

 lie was made commander-in-cliief of the forces in 



Ireland, and, in the same year, received the gover- 

 norship of Gibraltar. 



Spain, in connexion with France, took part, in 

 1779, in the war between Britain and America, and, 

 even before the declaration of war, laid siege to 

 Gibraltar, by sea ami by land. In the course of 

 three years, all the preparations had been made for 

 a siege, which is one of the most extraordinary in 

 history. In June, 1782, the duke of Crillon, com- 

 inander-in-chief of the Spanish army, who liad re- 

 cently taken the island of Minorca from the British, 

 arrived at Gibraltar, with a reinforcement. All the 

 French princes royal were in the camp. An army 

 of :iO,000 Frenchmen and Spaniards were at the foot 

 of the hill. Floating batteries were constructed to 

 attack the fortifications, with two roofs, so carefully 

 and strongly built, that neither balls nor bombs could 

 injure them. There were ten of them, which, together, 

 had 397 cannons, each cannon being served by thirty- 

 six men. Sept. 13, 1782, they drew near to the for- 

 tress, and the crews (consisting of criminals, to whom, 

 if they did their duty, a pension of 200 livres per an 

 iiiini had been promised) commenced the attack. El 

 iott wished to assail the batteries with red-hot shot, but 

 knew no means of preparing them in sufficient quantity. 

 A German smith, however, named Schwan Rendiek, 

 constructed an oven for the purpose, and more than 

 4000 hot shot were now showered on the batteries. 

 The same afternoon, smoke was seen to rise from 

 the principal battery and two others. The enemy 

 in vain attempted to subdue the flames and close the 

 holes ; at one o'clock at night, three of the batteries 

 were completely in flames, and some of the others 

 were beginning to burn. The crews in vain made 

 signals to the Spanish fleet of their condition ; they 

 could do nothing for the batteries, and only attempted 

 to rescue the crews ; but twelve gunboats, which left 

 the fortress, commanded by captain Curtis, prevented 

 the boats of the besiegers from approaching, and, iit 

 the same time, continued to fire on the floating for- 

 tresses. At break of day, the crews were seen on 

 the burning batteries crying for help. The besieged 

 now hastened to assist them, dangerous as it was, on 

 account of the balls from the heated cannons and the 

 pieces of wood from the bursting structures, which 

 flew against them. Curtis, at the risk of his own life 

 and those of his people, saved thirteen officers and 

 344 soldiers. An attack by land was also frus- 

 trated by Eliott, and, at the same time, a tem- 

 pest greatly injuring the Spanish fleet, the siege, 

 from the middle of November, 1782, was changed 

 into a close blockade, to which the peace, concluded 

 at Versailles, Jan. 20, 1783, put an end. The king 

 of Britain sent Eliott the order of the Bath, which 

 was presented to him on the spot on which he had 

 most exposed himself to the fire of the enemy. 

 Eliott himself, with the consent of the king, ordered 

 medals to be struck, one of wlu'ch was presented to 

 every soldier engaged hi the defence. 



After the conclusion of peace, he went to England, 

 and was created lord Heathfield. In 1790, he was 

 obliged to visit the baths of Aix-la-Chapelle for his 

 health. In Kalkofen, a place near that city, and his 

 favourite residence, he died of an apoplexy, July 6, 

 the same year. His corpse was carried to England, 

 and the king himself prepared the plan of a monu- 

 ment erected in honour of him at Gibraltar. One 

 of the most famous pictures of Copley, representing 

 the siege and relief of Gibraltar, and full of portraits, 

 is placed in the council-chamber of Guildhall, Lon- 

 don, having been painted for the city. General Eliott 

 was one of the most abstemious men of his age. 

 His diet consisted of vegetables and water. He slept 

 only four hours at a time, and inured himself to habits 

 of order and watchfulness. 



