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MERCATOR MERCER. 



taken. If a nation needs other tilings more than 

 specie, such prices will be offered as will induce their 

 importation. But this notion of the importance of 

 tlie balance of exports and imports is not without its 

 truth in a certain respect. It is undoubtedly an evil 

 for one nation to be constantly indebted to another. 

 It will be found true between individuals, different 

 districts of the same country, and also between dif- 

 ferent nations, that the indebted party is the one 

 most liable to make sacrifices. If a people or dis- 

 trict, or an individual, will keep in advance of their 

 means, and anticipate the income of the coming year, 

 the consequence will be a perpetually straitened and 

 embarrassed state. This was always the case with 

 the British American colonies, and even of the states 

 for many years after the establishment of the Ameri- 

 can independence. The liberal credits in England 

 enabled them to anticipate their income, and they 

 were, accordingly, always largely indebted to Eng- 

 land, and thus constantly straitened and distressed, 

 notwithstanding the country was, during the same 

 time, rapidly growing in population and wealth. It 

 is desirable that the commerce of a country should 

 be so conducted as not to keep the country constantly 

 indebted. If we were, therefore, to consider the ba- 

 lance of trade to be a constant standing balance of 

 debt due to, or from, a country, in this sense it would 

 be a subject of great importance. The consequence 

 of large foreign credits, and of the desire to consume 

 more of foreign products than the people have pre- 

 sent produce of their labour sufficient to pay for, is 

 occasionally to drive specie from the country; and 

 the more extensive the credits, the more complete 

 and exhausting will be this drain when it happens. 

 This has been a subject of very frequent experience 

 in the trade between Europe and America. The 

 only way of preventing its recurrence is to produce 

 at home so great a proportion of the commodities 

 wanted for consumption, that the exportable produce 

 will be amply sufficient to pay, in the foreign mar- 

 kets, for the foreign products needed. But whether 

 legislation shall be at all, and if at all, to what 

 extent, directed to the advancement of commerce, 

 or any other branch of industry, so as incidentally 

 and consequentially to affect the kind and amount 

 of exchanges with foreign nations, are much agitated 

 questions. The practice of the whole civilized 

 world is to legislate with a reference to national 

 industry, and such it always has been. The real 

 ground of doubt seems to relate to the proper objects 

 and extent of this legislation. 



MERCATOR, GERARD, a mathematician and 

 geographer, born at Rupelmonde (not, as usually 

 stated, atRuremond), in the Low Countries, in 1512, 

 studied at Louvain, applying himself with such inten- 

 sity as to forget to take the necessary food and 

 sleep. His progress in the mathematics was very 

 rapid, although without a teacher, and he soon 

 became a lecturer on geography and astronomy, 

 making his instruments with his own hands. Gran- 

 vella (q. v.), to whom he presented a terrestrial 

 globe, recommended him to Charles V. Mercator 

 entered into the emperor's service, and executed for 

 him a celestial globe of crystal, and a terrestrial 

 globe of wood. In 1559, he retired to Duisburg, 

 and received the title of cosmographer to the duke 

 ?f Juliers. His last years were devoted to theologi- 

 cal studies. He died in 1594. Mercator published 

 a great number of maps and charts, which he en- 

 graved and coloured himself. He is known as the 

 inventor of a method of projection called by his 

 name, in which the meridians and parallels of lati- 

 tude cut each other at right angles, and are both 

 represented by straight lines, which has the effect of 

 enlarging the degrees of latitude, as they recede 



from the equator. His first maps on this projection 

 were published in 1569 ; tlie principles were first 

 explained by Edward Wright, in 1599, in his Cor- 

 rections of Errors in Navigation, whence the discov- 

 ery has sometimes been attributed to him. His 

 Tabula Ueographicee (Cologne, 1578) is the best 

 edition of the maps of Ptolemy, and has been merely 

 copied by his successors. His Atlas has been often 

 republished. 



MERCER, HUGH, a brigadier-general in tlie 

 American revolutionary army, was a native of 

 Scotland. He was liberally educated, studied 

 medicine, and acted as a surgeon's assistant in 

 the memorable battle of Culloden. He emigrated 

 from his country, not long after, to Pennsylvania, 

 but removed to Virginia, where he settled and 

 married. He was engaged with Washington 

 in the Indian wars of 1755, &c. ; and his chil- 

 dren are in possession of a medal which was 

 presented to him by the corporation of the city of 

 Philadelphia, for his good conduct in the expedition 

 against an Indian settlement, conducted by colonel 

 Armstrong, in September, 1756. In one of the 

 engagements with the Indians, general Mercer was 

 wounded in the right wrist, and being separated 

 from his party, he found that there was danger of 

 his being surrounded by hostile Indians, whose war- 

 whoop and yell indicated their near approach. 

 Becoming faint from loss of blood, he took refuge in 

 the hollow trunk of a large Iree. The Indians came 

 to the spot where he was concealed, seated them- 

 selves about for rest, and then disappeared. Mercer 

 left his hiding-place, and pursued his course through 

 a trackless wild of about one hundred miles, until he 

 reached fort Cumberland. On the way, he subsisted 

 on the body of a rattlesnake, which he met and 

 killed. When the war broke out between the colo- 

 nies and the mother country, he immediately joined 

 the American standard, relinquishing an extensive 

 medical practice. Under Washington, whose favour 

 and confidence he enjoyed beyond most of his fel- 

 low-officers, he soon reached the rank of brigadier- 

 general, and, in that command, distinguished him- 

 self, particularly in the battles of Trenton and 

 Princeton, in the winter of 1776 7. In the affair 

 of Princeton, general Mercer, who commanded the 

 van of the American army, after exerting the utmost 

 valour and activity, had his horse killed under him ; 

 and, being thus dismounted, he was surrounded by 

 some British soldiers, with whom, when they refused 

 him quarter, he fought desperately, until he was 

 completely overpowered. They stabbed him with 

 their bayonets, inflicted several blows on his head 

 with the butt-end of their muskets, and left him for 

 dead on the field of battle. He died in about 

 a week after, from the wounds in his head, in 

 the arms of major George Lewis, the nephew of 

 general Washington, whom the uncle commissioned 

 to watch over his expiring friend. The mangled 

 corpse was removed from Princeton, under a military 

 escort, to Philadelphia, and exposed a day in the 

 coffee-house, with the design of exciting the indig- 

 nation of the people. It was followed to the grave 

 by at least 30,000 of the inhabitants. General Mer- 

 cer, though a lion in battle, was uncommonly placid, 

 and almost diffident in private life. He was beloved 

 and admired, as an accomplished, polished, and bene- 

 volent gentleman. Some interesting anecdotes of him 

 are related in the 3d chapter, 1st vol. of general 

 Wilkinson's Memoirs. That writer observes " In 

 general Mercer, we losty at Princeton, a chief, who, 

 for education, talents, disposition, integrity, and 

 patriotism, was second to no man but the com- 

 mander-in-chief, and was qualified to fill the 

 highest trusts of the country." General Mercer 



