BONA FIDE 805 



munications, and its coastal trade is more than 

 double that of Calcutta. Next to Madras, the 

 city is the oldest of British Indian possessions, 

 having been ceded in 1661 by Portugal, under 

 whose dominion the city never flourished. Pop- 

 ulation, 1911, 979,445. F.ST.A. 



BONA FIDE, bo'nah fi'de, a Latin term 

 meaning in good faith, a term used in law in 

 the sense of honestly, genuinely or without de- 

 ception. A bona fide purchaser is a person 

 who buys property and pays for it, believing 

 that the title to such property is clear and that 

 the owner has the right to sell it. A contract 

 entered into in good faith cannot be annulled 

 without the consent of both parties, but when 

 a contract is shown to be not bona fide, the 

 injured person may lawfully cancel it. The 

 term is also used in connection with suits for 

 libel, where a distinction is made between 

 malicious acts and acts done in good faith. 



BONANZA, bonan'za, a Spanish word 

 meaning fair weather or a favoring wind, used 

 in mining districts of various countries to 

 signify an abundance of precious metal or rich 

 ore. The word was first applied in this way 

 by the miners of the Comstock Lode, a wonder- 

 ful gold and silver mine in Nevada which 

 yielded $340,000,000 worth of ore in thirty 

 years. It is now also used to signify any good 

 fortune or successful enterprise. 



BONAPARTE, bo' napahrt, the family name 

 of one of the greatest characters in history, 

 Napoleon I, emperor of the French. Bonaparte 

 is the French form of the original Italian name 

 Buonaparte, bprne by Napoleon's family in 

 Corsica, and by several Italian families prom- 

 inent in the early Middle Ages. The French 

 spelling was used entirely by Napoleon after 

 1796. The Corsican Buonapartes were descend- 

 ants of Francesco Buonaparte, who came to 

 Corsica from Italy in the middle of the six- 

 teenth century. In the eighteenth century 

 three male representatives of the family were 

 residing in Ajaccio, capital of Corsica; these 

 were the Archdeacon Lucien Bonaparte, his 

 brother Napoleon, and the nephew of both, 

 Carlo, the father of Napoleon I. 



Carlo, or Charles, Bonaparte (1746-1785), 

 Napoleon's father, completed a law course at 

 the University of Pisa, and after the French 

 conquest of Corsica accepted a government 

 position at Ajaccio. Then he married Letizia 

 Ramolino, a beautiful girl of noble character 

 (in 1767). He fought under Paoli, the Corsi- 

 can patriot who carried on the vain struggle 

 for independence from French rule, and when 



BONAPARTE 



he saw that the cause was hopeless he went 

 over to the side of France. In 1771 Louis XV 

 included the Bonaparte family in the list of 

 those which were to enjoy rank among the 

 French nobility. Of a restless and adventurous 

 disposition, Carlo went to Paris in 1777, where 

 he resided for several years, obtaining free 

 admission for his second son Napoleon to the 

 military school of Brienne, where the boy laid 

 the foundation for the career that was to 

 change the destiny of Europe. 



Eight children survived him: Joseph, later 

 the king of Spain; Napoleon I, emperor of the 

 French ; Lucien, who became prince of Canino ; 

 Maria Anna, afterward called Elisa, Princess of 

 Lucca and Piombino and later wife of Prince 

 Bacciocchi; Louis, whom Napoleon made king 

 of Holland; Carlotta, afterward named Marie 

 Pauline, who married Prince Camillo Borghese ; 

 Annunciata, afterward called Caroline, wife of 

 Murat, for a time king of Naples; and Jerome, 

 by Napoleon's decree king of Westphalia. 



Jerome Bonaparte (1784-1860), the youngest, 

 brother of Napoleon, after a short European 

 career began an American line of the Bonaparte 

 family by his marriage to Miss Elizabeth Pat- 

 terson, of Baltimore, in 1803. Having become 

 a lieutenant in the French navy, he was sent 

 on an expedition to the West Indies, and on the 

 outbreak of the war between France and Eng- 

 land in 1803 was forced to run his ship into 

 New York harbor to escape the pursuit of 

 English cruisers. While traveling in the United 

 States, Jerome met Miss Patterson and mar- 

 ried her in spite of his august brother's protests. 

 Two years after their marriage he separated 

 from his wife at Napoleon's command, and in 

 1807 was created king of Westphalia, the king- 

 dom erected by Napoleon from conquered 

 German territory. The emperor also forced his 

 brother to marry Catherine, Princess of Wiirt- 

 temberg, for he decreed that the queen of 

 Westphalia must be of royal blood. 



Jerome's short and troubled reign, in which 

 the state was all but ruined financially, came 

 to an end with the defeat of Napoleon at the 

 Battle of the Nations (Leipzig) in 1813. He 

 was loyal to his brother's cause through all the 

 events that followed, and fought bravely for 

 him at the Battle of Waterloo. Thereafter, 

 until 1847, he lived in various European cities. 

 When his nephew, Louis Napoleon, became 

 President of the French republic established in 

 1848, Jerome was given charge of the home for 

 disabled soldiers in Paris, and later became 

 marshal of France and president of the Senate. 



